Saturday, July 24, 2010

The 4th Trusted Name in News

So, as I do about 2 hours of cardio a day at my gym, I spend those 2 hours watching CNN since that's the only 24 hour news station they have. I have to say, I thought their coverage of the Sherrod case was despicably one sided.

Ok, let's start at the beginning. The whole incident happened because the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the Tea Party for being racist, sparked over a racist post from a guy that wasn't even a member of the Tea Party. This, at around the same time mainstream journalists are caught through something like leaked emails(JournoList-gate), admitting that they falsely accuse Conservatives of being racists to try and protect Obama. I have to say that again. Mainstream journalists admitted to blatantly advocating lying about Conservatives... these are professional journalists admitting to lying about Conservatives and calling them racists without any justification.

So this one Conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart, gets a tape sent to him by an unknown source of a woman, Shirley Sherrod, giving a speech at an NAACP event in which she justifies racially discriminating against white people. Breitbart posts the video on his website citing hypocrisy--ie, members of the NACCP shouldn't be calling others racist when people like Sherrod admit to racism at NAACP events. Did Breitbart take a clip out of context or did he trust his source and just pass on the video as it was sent to him assuming it was a fair summery of the event? We don't know. If Breitbart had the whole clip and edited it down to make it appear like something it wasn't, than he's an idiot. He should have known the full tape would get out and it would backfire. So he's either an idiot, or he was set up.

But the bottom line is, all the guy did was take a video recording of a publicly given speech and put it up on his website. Youtube has thousands of political videos where people have done the same thing. There's videos taken out of contexts of Obama "admitting he's a Muslim." Obama misspoke. Another video has Mrs Obama "admitting" Barack was born in Kenya. Again, those are taken out of context by people purposely trying to make these people look like they're saying something else. People, on both sides, do it to be cute, funny, idiots, who knows. But it's common.

The difference here is the Sherrod video went viral and the White House, NAACP, and Department of Agriculture of Georgia all reacted to the clip and made a bad decision based on it. Sherrod was forced to resign before the story even made it on the news. I realise some idiots are blaming Fox here, but let's not forget the facts here. She was asked to resign and had resigned *before* Fox ever aired the story.

Now, keep in mind, the NAACP had the full tape all along. The speech, after all, was given at their event and they, instead of retrieving that tape from their archives first, decided to throw Sherrod under the bus, THEN look at the full tape the next day.

So Sherrod got forced out, and has since been made into a hero of sorts by all the news networks trying to get a human interest story out of it. Obama and the NAACP screwed up. They wanted to kill the story before it even hit the news and they did so without all the facts. Mistakes happen, and they've since apologized in their own ways and tried to make things right. Cool. If Obama makes a mistake, and fixes it right after, I'm totally cool with that. So I have nothing bad to say about that part of it.

But this is not the story that CNN is running with. CNN is turning this into a story of Andrew Breitbart ruining the life of a good person and using lies and deception to do it. Over the passed several days on watching CNN coverage over this story--and they've been covering it non stop--not once have I seen them mention a single time that this was a result of a tit for tat war between the NAACP and the Tea Party. Don't you think that's kind of important? Don't you think painting this story as some crazy right wing conservative nut job that "randomly" targeted some poor innocent, saintly women who just wanted to help people, is pretty dishonest if you're not going to at least mention why it started? It gets worse.

Then they had on this guest author, Andrew Keen, talk about what legislative actions should be taken against conservatives that spread lies on the internet. At this point, the host, Kyra Phillips, should have reminded him that it's only in totalitarianist regimes that the governments crack down against people that speak out. That crap doesn't fly in America. We have something called freedom here. Tell 'em, Kyra! But no, that's not what she says. She went along with everything that nut job was saying. Then after this horribly one sides piece portraying Sherrod as this innocent, saintly woman who was victimized by some evil, malicious right wing conservative liar for no other reason than pure evil reasons, went on to say that it's only honest news stations like CNN and the mainstream media that present the truth and that the others lie(implying that Fox only tells lies). I'm thinking, ok, she's going to say something about what a ridiculous, childish statement that was. I mean, anyone that honestly thinks there are news stations that are unbiased or that it's even possible to be unbiased is an idiot. But no, she was completely onboard with everything the guy said. Then after she actually advocated the government should censor the internet(an incredibly frightening thought) because of those slanderous Republicans that slander the good name of our fine President(not the words she used, but you know she was blaming the Right), they actually had the gall to transition to the next story about Netroots. She actually had a smile on her face as she talked about the fine, good honest Liberal bloggers(the kind that invent lies about how the Tea Party is racist) that make up the Netroots community and their convention in Las Vegas.

Well, I was stunned. I can't believe all the crap I hear about Fox News not really being news when CNN pulls such irresponsible, one sided crap pieces like that steaming pile. Atleast when Fox News first covered the story, before the full tape came out, they had several panelists give opposing views like "maybe the tape is out of context." It was balanced. And that's a big reason why Fox has the highest ratings now.

I read an article on the Huffington Post recently that said that CNN has to stop using the slogan "The most trusted name in news," when their ratings have caused them to slip to 4th place among cable news. Ouch, 4th place. Uh, how many cable news stations are there anyways? Not that many.

In either case, this whole story is silly on all angles and it made everyone look bad. No one "won" this fight. Personally, we need to stop throwing around the racism insult. It gets misused and abused so much that it's beginning to not mean anything anymore. There generally are racist people, and they're in every political party and organization. Singling out the racists in "the other guys" is silly and leads us nowhere. Singling people out for being racists, is fine. But don't drag their organization into it if there's no link.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Not the Wright Decision

Lot's of racial tension stories in the news lately. Heh, sounds like an opening bit to a Leno monologue. The whole Shirley Sherrod story hits on the heels of the NAACP vs Tea Party, Mark William's racist satire, the New Black Panther story, and Liberal mainstream media caught conspiring to hide racist pastor Jeremiah Wright story to avoid making Obama look back.

Let's start with Shirley Sherrod. She was the Director of Rural Development for the Department of Agriculture for the state of Georgia. Back in March, she gave a speech at a convention for the NAACP in which she said she always tried to help black people when they had financial problems with their farms. Then one day, a white person came in looking for help, and she chose not to give him as much help, and instead, gave him the bare minimum assistance required and sent him to a white lawyer--a member of his own kind for help. Now, if she's getting paid as a state worker to help people in need, turning away white people is pretty darn racist. This is where the video clip of her speaking ends and it's since gone viral--though I'd never even heard of it until last night--in part mostly by conservative websites like biggovernment.com who also helped the ACORN videos get big.

So the video gets out, and within a day, the NAACP calls for her to resign. According to Sherrod, Obama's people were making harassing comments to her on the phone and one told her to pull over to the side of the road immediately, take out her Blackberry and use it to send in her resignation which she finally did. She said on CNN she was told if she didn't do it right then and there, she would be mentioned on Glen Beck and condemned as a racist and Obama desperately needed to avoid any more race related controversies right now. So Sherrod gets the sacrificial boot for being a racist(and based only on what she said on that tape--rightfully so).

Why is the NAACP so eager to get involved? They recently passed a resolution to condemn the Tea Party movement as being racist. The Tea Party fought back, bringing up the recent story of New Black Panther voter intimidation dismissal. Then Mark Williams, founder of the Tea Party Express, writes some offensive "satirical" racist blog entry joking that black people are lazy and live off white people and the NAACP point to that as evidence of racism. The Tea Party condemn Mark Williams post, saying he doesn't speak for them. Blah, blah. In short, Tea Party and NAACP go after each other and leave equal shares of blood on the floor. Newt Gengrich gets in the news for making the interesting suggestion that the Tea Party and NAACP should forget all that nonsense and join forces. Wouldn't that be interesting? Have I said lately I hope Newt is our next President?

Also recently in the news, The Daily Caller broke a story about a now defunct site called Journolist in which members from major mainstream media sources conspired to hide the Jeremiah Wright story because it was obviously embarrassing to Obama. Journalist Spencer Ackerman, who's appeared on CNN and various other networks, even suggested to his media friends they should pick a conservative at random and call them racists to distract from the Jeremiah Wright story and let conservative journalists suffer the consequences of going after the left. Other journalists are quoted as saying the best path is to just ignore the story. If you remember when it "broke," you'd know that's exactly what happened.

And, I mean, it was kind of a big story... or would have been had anyone covered it. Here you have Barack Obama's pastor to the Trinity United Church of Christ where Obama was a member of until recently, saying hateful things against jews and whites and Obama, who at one point, donated $20k to the church, can't disassociate himself well from it. And nearly all the mainstream media refused to cover the story. Fox covered it, naturally. ABC covered it briefly. And when ABC covered it, they were blasted by the other journalists on this private message board called Journolist.

None of this should be surprising. Fox broke the ACORN story in which employees were caught giving advice on how to smuggle underaged prostitutes into the country illegally. The brother of the founder of ACORN embezzled a million dollars of tax payer dollars through ACORN, and ACORN used tax payer dollars to help elect Obama and to lobby for his causes(instead of using it to find housing for people which is what their contract was for). Obama was once a lawyer working for ACORN. The other networks eventually gave token coverage to the story long after it broke.

Obama's Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones... only Fox covered him. Van Jones was quoted saying on camera that Republicans are assholes, that it's only white kids that shoot up schools--never black kids, and that big companies pollute in black neighborhoods on purpose. He also signed a petition claiming that George Bush planned and orchestrated 9/11. Again, none of the other media outlets covered this story. And now we see some evidence that the mainstream media have atleast in part, been caught conspiring not to cover important stories if they make Obama look bad. I actually think it's less sinister than that. I think mainstream media is less likely to cover stories that make a popular President look bad because their viewers don't want to see them. If your market doesn't want to buy what you're making, you go out of business. But Obama's popularity has dropped, so that's changing. Obama knows it, which is why he went from freakishly overexposed, to rarely interviewed anymore. I think the mainstream media is a lot more likely to run negative Obama stories now, which has got to have Obama nervous lately.

Ok, so Obama eventually said of Wright that he strongly condemns his racist words and was saddened and angered by them. I think that's probably true, but I'm not buying that Obama didn't know Wright was like that from the beginning. I mean, we all have a racist relative that we still talk to even if we don't exactly approve of what they have to say about some things. So personally, I think the news should cover Wright, but it's not a big deal in my opinion in regards to my opinion of Obama. I don't think Obama is a racist. He has overtly racist people around him because he doesn't pick his people very well and he's not a very good leader. But that doesn't make him a racist by association.

Ok, so back to Sherrod. Obama wanted to avoid another headache. The NAACP, no doubt, was tired of taking damage from the Tea Party hornet's nest they stirred up. Both parties wanted this Sherrod story to go away before it ended up on Glen Beck--which tells you how much power Beck has over Obama. And really, if I was Obama, I wouldn't have such a glass jaw and worry about what people think about me. I'd just do my thing and let the people that aren't for me be damned. But anyway, Beck did cover the story, but he took the exact opposite position that Obama and his people seemed to assume he would. I'm a fan of Beck, and to me, Beck's take on it is pretty much what he always does. Beck asks more questions than he gives answers, which is something I like about him.

Beck watched the rest of the tape. See, most people had only seen the beginning where she said she didn't want to help the poor farmer because he was white. The extended version of the tape shows that she goes on to say of this incident that happened 24 years ago, that she realized she was in error and that the white farmer needed help just as much as a poor black farmer, so she changed her mind and helped him after all, going over and above her job to save the man's farm. So she might have been a racist at one point 24 years ago, but changed her ways. Beck, instead of blasting Shirley Sherrod, blasted the Obama knee jerk decision to pressure her resignation based on bad information. Beck also played the tape of Obama speaking of the Boston police that acted "stupidly" before Obama had all the facts just to remind ous of Obama's history on knee jerk reactions.

Ok, so obviously I'm not an Obama fan. But I still don't think he's a closet racist. I do, however, think Obama has had to deal with a lot more crap because he's black. Not so much because crap is thrusted upon him by the mainstream because he's black, but I think black people in general have to walk a difficult path between embracing mainstream culture without being a "sellout." Case in point, if McCain had appointed a white guy czar who had made racist comments in the past, McCain would have full support from everyone in firing the guy as soon as he knew. It would have been clear cut. But Obama actually got backlash from firing Van Jones from his Liberal base. Isn't that weird? Howard Dean, whoch was the Chairman of the Democrat party at the time even praised Van Jones and said he shouldn't have been fired. Again, that would not have happened if all the colors and political leanings were reversed.

There was a poll that showed that 29% of blacks supported the racist, anti white comments made by Jeremiah Wright. Now 29% is a minority, but it's still a pretty high number of African Americans that agree with such horrible comments. It's almost one out of three. Isn't that a little frightening? Reverse racism is just more accepted in society. The point I'm trying to make is Obama's hands are tied in condemning "reverse racism." He seems to only do it if the mainstream is upset by it. I think most people would agree Obama is a terribly weak leader who has trouble making decisions about anything. And when he does act quickly and decisively, it goes badly.

Sherrod's boss has since offered her a new job and apologized. Interestingly enough, all the major news outlets are covering this story. Again, Obama's popularity has slipped, so the negative stories start to make it on air.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Working Out

So I'm a little over 5 weeks of going to the gym. I've taken a couple days rest during that time, but have otherwise gone every night. I haven't made a lot of progress in terms of weight loss, but I've definitely increased my muscle weight. Since the scale doesn't tell the difference, I must have been losing body fat as well. I took a before picture when I first started and another at 3 weeks. Seems like I've lost a slight amount of weight from my mid section. So it seems to be working. It's just slow progress.

I do cardio on the elliptical for a little over an hour. An elliptical is sort of like a treadmill but without the impact. That's good since my feet and knees start to ache after a while of normal jogging. I get my heart rate at about a mid aerobic rate where I'm panting a little bit, but could still kind of talk if needed. After an hour of that, I go lift weights for about another hour. I think about that sometimes. I'm going to have to commit 2 hours of working out every single day for the rest of my life if I want to be in shape. Do I want it that bad to make that kind of commitment? Um. I guess so. I know really serious body builders will spend 5 hours every day working out. I'm not really sure why. Obviously they know something I don't. But you can only work out your muscle so much before you're tearing it more than your body can repair it. And it only takes so long to lift a weight. What more are they doing?

Anyway, I'm back to being just a beginner again. I used to be in fairly decent shape when I was into martial arts. Ten years ago, I did a jump spinning kick in a match, slipped on a small rain puddle from the leaky roof, and came crashing down on one of my knees, crushing the end of my femur inward. I had a doctor tell me I might never walk again without a serious limp. I would triumphantly say he was wrong. But I think he only said that to scare me into taking the physical therapy seriously. I never ended up going and my knee didn't recover very well. I wondered if it ever would.

But I realized the other day as I did quad extensions, that my knee didn't hurt like it normally would. I think I've finally made a full recovery 10 years later. I mean, during those 10 years, I've tried to get back into shape, but then I'd go to work out my legs, hit that snag with my knee and get discouraged. Get depressed, more like it. I hate to admit it, but I really kind of did spiral into a depression after that. People spiral into depression after a loved one dies or after they lose a limb or are horribly disfigured. What a wimp I am if a sore knee does it to me. But it really did change my life. It ended my ability to do martial arts to dance or do anything active at all. It seems so silly that such a minor thing like that affected me so much and for so long. Now, it could take a year or more to get back to where I was. But, no matter how long it takes, the only way to get there is to keep going.

Anyways, back to the working out thing. I'm basically doing my old methods. Work on toning for 6 weeks, then bulking for 6 weeks and repeat. When bulking, you lift as much as you can for 8 reps and 2 sets with a minute wait between sets for each muscle you're working on. When toning, you lift as much as you can for 15 reps and 3 sets with a minute wait between sets. I do a split set for both with a 2 day cycle during bulking and a 3 during toning. My 2 day cycle is a standard push / pull method. You do all the muscles you need to push with - triceps, pecks, delts, quads / gluts and obliques(just to fit them in somewhere) on push days. Pull muscles would be biceps, lats, posterior delts, lower back, hamstrings, and I put calves there so I'm not doing leg press and calve raises on the same day. I also do my forearms on pull days. When I do a three day split, I do all the leg stuff on Day 3 instead. I also add the in and outside into my leg routine--push your legs apart on one machine and bring them together on another.

You need carbs in your system while you work out or you won't build muscle. I try and eat bread or cottage cheese and fruit right before I leave to the gym. I've cut refined / processed sugar out of my diet completely and haven't had any for about a year now. That means no chocolate, cookies, ice cream, etc. And rarely do I drink soda--maybe one a month. As a side note, once you get refined sugar out of your system, it's amazing how sweet other food tastes. Wheat bread tastes like cake to me.

Everyone has different gifts and challenges when it comes to working out. I have freakishly large calves and decent sized biceps. My legs in general are fairly easy for me to work out. However, other than my arms, I have very weak upper body strength right now. Good thing I go to the gym late at night where less people are around to see the pathetically light amount of weight I'm bench pressing. I've always had weak pecks though. Not sure why. That, coupled with the fact that I'm toning... by the time I get to that 3rd set and I'm struggling after 12 reps in that set, that small amount of weight feels unbearable. All the weight I'm doing is low compared to what I used to do before I hurt me knee, but in a few more months from now, it'll be different and less embarrassing. I don't know why I let it get to me. No one at the gym gives a damn what I'm lifting. So making it a macho thing is silly on my part.

In either case, I've done body building, I've dieted, and I've done cardio. I've done all 3 of those things on a consistent basis for 6 weeks or more at various times in my life. But I've never done all three at once. Until now. I have about another month or so to see how it's panning out. Hopefully well. Like I said, I've seen only slight, but noticeable results so far. I'm pretty determined to get into really good shape for once in my life.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Keeping Up with the Chapmans

Vice President Biden was on Jay Leno tonight. In talking about sending the 10 caught Russian spies back to Russia, Jay asked Biden about the beautiful Russian spy Anna Chapman. Biden said it was not his decision to send her back. I was watching one of the tvs at my gym while on the treadmill and I busted up laughing.

Biden and Obama both are pretty funny and charismatic. I want to like them. They're just so horribly wrong with their political ideology. But speaking of the spies, is it me, or is it a little strange that we've been watching them for the last ten years, decide to finally arrest them, then almost instantly, hand them over to Russia? I feel like this is a massive cover up. What it could possibly be covering up, I have no idea. But they committed a crime against us. Shouldn't they get at least a little jail time first? I realize an American jail is like a resort compared to jails in other countries. To be honest, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Anna came back to the US and got her own reality show. Wouldn't you watch at least the first episode?

Speaking of reality tv show stars, Rod Blagojevich has been making some interesting claims lately. In the wake of Obama being caught offering bribes to other Democrats in exchange for them not running against his friends, Blago is claiming that Obama offered him a bribe in exchange for him appointing Obama's friend Valerie Jarret to Obama's old senate seat. It's either been confirmed or at least it's highly likely that Obama did ask Blago to appoint Jarret to the senate seat. Blago said that he wasn't going to give it up for nothing. Now if Obama made an offer, then Obama has broken the law. Blago is claiming Obama did, but it's my gut feeling that Blago is either lying or exaggerating to save himself. I think Obama dodges a bullet on this one.

But if it's true and somehow gets confirmed, we could possibly see another president get the "Nixon treatment." I think Obama is as arrogant as Nixon and feels he's above the law. I think it's likely that Obama did hint at possible bribes, but I think if Blago could prove it, he would have done so by now. So I think the story goes no where, but I guess we'll find out.

I don't know why, but I don't really want Obama to go down that way. I'd rather the country see socialism at "its finest," and decide never to vote in another Liberal ever again. It's sort of interesting that at the G20, Europe essentially said that Socialism has broken them, and they're going to reduce government spending. That would mean every country that's ever tried Socialism either fell into totalitarianism or reverted back to capitalism before it was too late. I guess all the rioting in Greece really scared people and they knew that could easily be their country next. We're speeding down the same path and will be until Obama gets voted out.

Hmm, what else? Oh, the New Black Panthers. Have you seen that video that's on the news? So these two members of the New Black Panthers stood in front of a polling place in a white neighborhood the day of the 2008 election. They're both dressed in the para military New Black Panther uniform. One of them named King Samir Shabazz pounds a billy club in his palms asking stuff like, "Where you goin, cracker?" when white people near in an attempt to intimidate voters. There's another video of him on youtube showing him with a megaphone at some black heritage festival telling people they have to kill white people and kill their babies to be free of white oppression. Nice guy, huh? Ok, so the KKK did (does?) the same thing. Racism is wrong no matter what color the idiot who spouts hatred and ignorance. And he was convicted of voter intimidation along with some white people doing the same against black people in a black neighborhood. They all need to go to jail. Democracy doesn't work unless people can feel safe voting.

Ok, so why is this in the news again, almost 2 years later? Because Eric Holder, Obama's incompetent Attorney General, decided recently to drop charges against the two New Black Panthers despite the many videos of them on youtube calling people crackers, intimidating people with weapons, and saying racist hate speech. The reason the charges were dropped? Not enough evidence. What the hell? The videos are all over youtube. How is there not enough evidence? Meanwhile the other people arrested in 2008 did not get their cases dropped. But they're not black either.

What's going on here? Well, the rumor is that it's the default position of the Federal Department of Justice to dismiss cases of voter intimidation if the victims are white and the perpetrators are black. Why? Because the Voter Rights Act was meant to protect minorities, not whites. At least that's what Former Justice attorney J. Christian Adams testified on after he resigned over this case.

In a decade or two, white people will no longer be the majority. I think it's important to recognize civil rights for all people, regardless of color, and do that now because soon white people will be minorities. You might think that even with white people in the minority, they'll still be able to hold the majority of power as we do now. This is unfortunately true. I say unfortunate because, although I freely admit that as a white person I do benefit from white privilege, I would rather such divisions of skin color not exist. After all, I'd rather my position in society be determined by my character, my ability, and my achievements, not my genetics. A society that operates otherwise breeds jealousy, mistrust, and hatred. My point, if civil rights is not enforced equally, it causes resentment which fuels discrimination which is ultimately counter productive. So by not prosecuting people of hate crimes because they're black, all that happens is more racial disharmony. A government that treats people equally is essential towards creating equality. We still have a long ways to go towards that goal.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

One of the Other 57 States

The Liberals would like to boycott Arizona, if only they could find it on the map. I'm talking about Supervisor Peggy West of Milwaukee County. Her and the county board voted on whether the county of Milwaukee should boycott Arizona or not. West's argument in favor? She claimed that since Arizona wasn't a border state, but rather was "a ways removed from the border" that the popular voter approved law was less justified. She went on to say that she googled the name of the bill, saw a picture of Obama and Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, meeting, and thus this means that Brewer must already have the national guard sent to her state so there's no need for Arizona to pass such a law. To Milwaukee's credit, someone else on the board corrected Supervisor West immediately after, politely reminding her that Arizona is, in fact, a border state.

Ok, so most liberals are not this dumb. But, it is pretty frightening that an elected official in her second term(so she's been in office a while), shows up at a meeting on whether to contribute to an economically devastating boycott or not and... I mean, wow. Now, I realize there are people out there that might not make geography a high priority in their lives. Americans are notoriously bad at geography. It's nearly non existent in our school system--I know I never had to take it. But wouldn't you think if you were an elected official and you stepped up to the mic to speak on a subject to make an argument... don't you think you'd at least find out if Arizona was a border state or not?

Of course, it's not the end of the world if the county of Milwaukee has an idiot for a Supervisor. I don't even know what a County Supervisor does. But it wasn't that long ago after Obama appointed Attorney General Eric Holder admitted after announcing he would sue Arizona on the Constitutionality of the law on behalf of the White House, that he later admitted to Congress that he hasn't actually even read the bill. Hell, *I've* read the bill. It was only 14 damn pages! He later said that, although he didn't read the bill, he was going off what he heard about it in the media. In the media? What does that mean? Like Jay Leno made a joke on the Tonight Show and the top lawyer in the country that represents Obama on all legal matters decides to threaten Arizona with a lawsuit? This is all politics. The Democrats know that illegal immigrants have children born in this country so that they become American citizens, then they support Democrats. No matter how ridiculous the steps they have to take, the Dems know they need to make latinos happy to court their votes.

So I was staying fairly neutral about Obama's handling of the oil spill. But there's been increasing information that Obama is really screwing up. First off, there's the Jones Act. The Jones Act was something that the unions wanted. Unions, of course, are the financial backers of the Democrat party, so to be fair, the Democrats have to keep the unions happy much like the Republicans have to keep big business happy. The Jones Act makes it so that no boat can be used to clean up the oil spill unless the boat was made in the US and is piloted by a fully American crew--thus to protect American jobs. Obama could easily suspend the Jones Act, but he's not going to. He has to keep the unions happy, and they like it.

So instead, he's allowed a few boats here and there to apply for Jones Act waivers. They claim a couple have done so. These boats and their crew may spend weeks waiting for the paper work, so while a couple or more may have made it through, many have not. The statistics I've heard from numerous sources is that there's over 2,000 skimmer boats available to use to clean up the oil, but only about 20 are actually being allowed in. That's 1% capacity--not very good numbers. ABC, a news organization that certainly is a more pro-Obama news agency, even did a report interviewing a few frustrated managers on the ground saying that Obama's people are falsifying the number of skimmers going out and people involved in the clean up. So the real numbers could be that even less than 20 skimmers are actually out on the water. If I was BP, I'd look at Obama and say, "Screw you guys, we're going to put as many skimmers out there as we can and clean up this damn oil now instead of sitting around wasting money and fudging the books."

What else? So Obama recently attributed the failed Stimulus Bill to creating 600,000 jobs. I would have so much more respect for Obama if he'd just come out and admit that the Stimulus Bill was a colossal failure. I mean, with 48% of the Stimulus Bill money spent to create jobs, that means 600,000 job created cost $700,000 dollars for each job. If that's success to the mind of a liberal, I'd hate to see failure. I mean, $700,000 dollars for just one job... you should be able to hire 20 people for that. That's horrible efficiency. After all, it doesn't mean that the people hired made $700,000 dollars. It means someone got paid minimum wage or a little better, and the other 90% of the money went poof.

What if instead he waved taxes and start up fees for new businesses. How many more jobs would he have created for a hell of a lot less money? Wouldn't you bet BP is getting charged by the government for 2,000 skimmers operating a day but only seeing 20? That's government efficiency right there. And the Libs want to grow our government even bigger and they wonder why the American public rejects them.

Health care remains unpopular. The CBO announced that despite Obama promising over and over that you could keep your healthcare plan if you like it, most Americans will be unable to keep their plan. This is another in a far too long line of broken promises. This, coupled with the announcement months before by the Congressional Budget Office that HC will cost over a hundred million more than Obama promised--putting it well over the trillion dollar mark Obama promised it wouldn't exceed. That doesn't count the closing of the donut hole and the "doctor fix," that's getting tacked on later that will cost hundreds of millions more. The donut hole is the fact that Social Security doesn't pay enough to fully cover some prescription medication costs. The "Doctor Fix," is the compensation for the fact that Medicare and Medicaid doesn't pay doctors the same amount of money for their services--meaning that doctors make less money from treating lower income people. Since doctors can choose to stop seeing Medicare and Medicaid patients, less and less of such patients will be able to see a doctor--a growing trend now.

So far, out of the Stimulus Bill, the Health Care Bill, the Oil Spill, and Immigration Issue, Obama is 0 and 4, and on the wrong side of public opinion on all 4. I'd have to say this puts him at the level of complete and utter failure--made all the worse by the fact that his party, the Democrats, held a super majority in Congress for most of that time. A super majority! If Obama wanted to pass a law that we all had to wear speedos and do jumping jacks on our front lawn, he could do it. He could have done anything he wanted, and he's still 0 and 4. His approval rating is about 45%. Who the hell are these 45% of people? Do you all still really hate Bush that badly that Charles Manson could have been elected and you'd still going around saying, "Well, at least he's not Bush." I don't understand people, I guess.

So, you might be thinking, "Obama still has 2 and a half more years. He'll need more time than that to clean up the mess Bush made!" Of course, I'd bet you can't actually name a single policy Bush passed that "messed up the county." You're just going off what your friends say. I'm not suggesting Bush was a great president. I'm only suggesting that before you hate the man, you do some research and figure out what it is about him you think was bad and come up with a logical argument that's not one sided. Anyway, back to my point. Obama does have 2 and a half more years. He's already lost his super majority in the Senate thanks to the special election replacing Ted Kennedy with Republican Scott Brown. The Republicans will either take back both houses in Congress at the end of this year or at least come really close to it. In either case, the Democrat's ability to pass unpopular legislation against the will of the American people ends at the end of this year. Obama has already demonstrated his contempt for Republicans. Where as Bill Clinton pivoted and worked with Republicans for the betterment of the country, Obama will not. He will fight for his twisted and discredited ideas until the bitter end. No Republican will go along with his horrible and unrealistic ideas and he will get voted out in 2012. It's my hope, that Newt Gengrich takes his place.